Sunday, 29 May 2016

18thC Ottomans - 15mm Figure Comparison

L to R - Old Glory European, Old Glory Anatolian, Fire & Sword  Segban, 15mm.co Azab
Wargaming the 7YW in 15mm is something I have been doing now for a few years and have almost exclusively been using Old Glory figures to do so. My Allies v French armies, after two reinforcement upgrades, are now finished (for now) and I was looking around for something new to start up that was in the same time period.

I decided on Russians v Turks however neither Timecast nor Old Glory USA have any pictures of their 15mm 7YW era Ottomans on their website and all my internet searching for any pictures of their figures elsewhere came up blank as well.

With no other option I bought up a few bags of various key types to let me have a look at them before getting that big order placed and then I thought, why don’t I do my bit for the betterment of mankind and post up some pictures myself, using the Devon Wargames club blog.

First up then are Sekhans/Sekbans:

Old Glory Anatolian Sekhans , made up of 3 poses and command figures
Old Glory Anatolian Sekhans - Close Ups
By Fire and Sword pack of Segbans
By Fire and Sword Segbans - Close Ups
Old Glory European Sekhans, only two poses in this pack and the command
Old Glory European Sekhans - Close Ups
Along with the two versions sold by Old Glory I also bought some from the new “By Fire and Sword” range and a few suitable figures of Azabs from 15mm.co.uk (The ones from By Fire and Sword and 15mm.co.uk are from their Renaissance ranges but do just fine).

Various Azabs from 15mm.co.uk
Old Glory and By Fire and Sword mix well together, unfortunately 15mm.co.uk figures are too small.

I still have more figures to buy , Janissaries, Sipahi, Tartars etc. however I was thinking that as the weather is slowly improving I could perhaps justify having a nice day out in the Shrewsbury area, taking in a pleasant lunch somewhere on the River Severn and popping into Timecast whilst I was there. (Hmm, probably better if I go to Timecast first).

I will post up more pics later on this site as the figures become available.

This was a Mr Steve Figure Comparison Production

11 comments:

  1. Excellent and many thanks for posting this information.

    Which RTW are you thinking of doing? I have painted a Russian army in Potemkin uniforms for the RTW 1787 to 1791 and am only starting the Ottomans.

    On the other hand there is a new book available on the earlier RTW available from Amazon which I bought only last week and have not read yet
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Russo-Turkish-War-1768-1774-Brian-Davies/dp/1472508017/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464531614&sr=1-1&keywords=russo+turkish+war

    Check out my blog - The Wargamorium - for the RTW https://thewargamorium.wordpress.com/category/1787-1792-russo-turkish-war/
    and also a guy in the States who has a blog called Din of Battle - http://dinofbattle.blogspot.be/

    Regards

    Robert McLean
    Belgium

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  2. Hi Robert , thanks for your comment, the lack of pictures has been annoying me for ages.
    I am planning to build a Russian army that can be used in the 7YW but will mainly be for fighting the Turks in the 1768 War, my reading of Brian Davies book which I have almost finished is that the Russians relied a lot on their Grenadiers and Jaegers .

    I have not yet started the Russian army but to be honest its going to be more 7YW in its make up. By this I mean ,for example , the Russians struggled with getting decent cavalry into the field in the 7YW , by the 1768 Turkish war they had done quite a bit to improve this situation , my army will probably not reflect this . I also cannot see the Russians fighting in Divisional squares , knowing my friends as I do.

    Din of Battle I was already aware of as I had looked at the Piquet set of rules some time ago and read the relevant blog . I bought the rules but will stick with Koenig Krieg.

    Thanks for the link to your blog, it looks very interesting and I have bookmarked it so as to follow your activities .

    As for the Ottomans , i have just ordered this book " The Ottoman army of the 18th Centuary"
    http://agema.org.uk/page21.html

    and I have also been discussing with Stuart at Mavarick Models about doing me some flags .

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  3. Hi Steve
    Thanks for responding. I haven't read the book yet but it is on my 'to read' list. I had thought of using Eureka figures for the SYW Russians although Eureka are usually quite tall.

    Thanks for your kind words about my modest blog. I have put yours onto my favourites as well so as to keep an eye on your RTW progress.

    Regards

    Robert

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  4. I hve just received my Ottoman army booklet from Agema and I would advise anyone wanting it to just buy the PDF as its only 21 pages long. Content looks OK and whilst not extensive it does add something to an otherwise sparse area of knowledge.

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  5. My book review of "The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire" by Brian L Davies is now up on my friends blog JJ Wargames , you can also find a link to it on TMP.

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  6. Hi Michael

    Thank you for your comment, I will probably be able to finish the Turks in a couple of posts time and then I will start to post up pictures of whatever Russian figures I buy , at the moment this should be : Infantry, Grenadiers ,artillery , generals and dragoons. There will also be another comparison shot of Siphai Cavalry using By Fire and Sword and Old Glory

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  7. I realize on my blog when I posted up my Turkish army, I failed to label what the Old Glory names were for the figures I had. At the time, it didn't seem relevant as there were too few blogs or sites posting up information about the Turks that I presumed there was no interest.

    My focus was on the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812. I've managed to find some historical scenarios and realize I need more Turkish infantry. I'm going with earlier Russian with the pre-1809 uniforms so that they will double for the 1805 campaign. I do have some Russians for the SYW, but since no one else in my group is interested in that period, it made no sense to design forces for that era. From what I'm seeing, it appears the Russians finally caught on to how to solve their cavalry problem in this theater, bring in cossacks and raise local arnauts (Albanian light cavalry). Finding information on those units is even more difficult.

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  8. I recognise a lot of those Ottoman figures on your blog! and I agree that finding suitable Sappers is a bit of a problem .I bought the same ones as you have and added a small horse drawn cart from Magister Millitum to carry their equipment.

    There was a big reorganization of the army after the 7YW especially for the cavalry as it was clearly not fit for purpose and the Government was at the same time also in the process of bringing the semi independent Cossack areas into State control/Army system.
    For the 1768-1774 war on which I have based my armies, I still have Cossacks along with Dragoons and maybe some Horse Carabineers who were replacing the old style Cuirassiers and Horse Grenadiers.
    However reforms take a long time to happen and so there are still Cuirassiers and hordes of Cossacks, the first now without a cuirass and the later still the same as always but with an official army title (the Cossack reforms were more fiscally based)
    And of course very soon after we then have Potemkin’s reforms and so on and so on,

    When the Russians were about to start their final push to end the war (Danube theatre) the cavalry available to them consisted roughly of:
    21 Regiments of Cavalry (probably mostly Dragoons)
    9 regiments of Cossacks
    1 regiment of Hussars
    6 Regiments of Don Cossacks
    2000 Zaporozhians
    Earlier in this war there are mentions of carbineer’s, Cuirassiers, Serbian Hussars and arnauts

    For my purposes I am happy to stick with known 7YW units to make it duel purpose

    The first showing of my finished Russians/Ottomans will be at our 14th Oct club meeting .

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    Replies
    1. It would appear you've done quite a bit of research. I wish the Russians had been a bit more enthusiastic about recording their experiences in these wars. For the Ottomans, we're forced to conclude plates that we hope are accurate but no one can be absolutely certain. In that same way, no one can really say we're wrong either.

      The Arnauts seems to be a difficult group to figure out. They're some sort of either Albanian or possibly Wallachian light cavalry - maybe dressed similar to cossacks? Of course the nationalities of some of those men is itself questionable.

      It appears in the 1806-1812 war the Russians weren't bothering with the heavier cavalry either out of their need elsewhere or the higher need for light cavalry to rival the Ottoman forces. Be sure to post some images on your blog of your battle with them, I'd like to see it.

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  9. I've always taken Arnauts to be recruited anywhere from Greece upwards , in my case mainly Moldovans as at this time the Russian frontier was a lot further North than in the time period you are looking at.
    The Russians had encouraged Serbian, Hungarian , Moldovan and Georgian immigration and had formed Volunteer Hussars regiments from them but this had declined significantly by the end of the 7YW.

    Specific mentions of Arnauts I can find for my period are Wallachian , Moldovan and Greek for the Russians and Albanians of course for the Ottomans were they are mentioned as both infantry and cavalry.

    I agree with your comment about the heavy cavalry being of more use in Europe than against a declining Ottoman Empire , Dragoons would be more than sufficient .

    Hopefully the nice man with the camera will tear himself away long enough from Bomber command to take some pictures of my game to go with the AAR .

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